Qinghai Lake
from space (November 1994)
Location	Tibetan Plateau
Coordinates	37° N 100° E
Lake type	shrunken
Surface area	5,694 km² (2,278 sq mi)

A "bird island".

Qinghai Lake or Lake Koko Nor is the largest lake in China. Qinghai Lake is also the largest drainless lake in the PRC and is located 3,205 m (10,515 feet) above sea level in a depression of the Tibetan Plateau. Twenty-three rivers and streams empty into Qinghai Lake. The Mongolian language (, mongol khel) is the best-known member of the Mongolic language family and the primary language of most of the residents of Mongolia, where it is officially written with the Cyrillic alphabet. ... ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (640x640, 137 KB) Qinghai Lake, China - November 1994 image description here File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Tibet Autonomous Region, Qinghai Province and Sichuan Province of China lie on the Tibetan Plateau. ... A man-made lake in Keukenhof, Netherlands A lake (from Latin lacus) is a body of water or other liquid of considerable size contained on a body of land. ... Image File history File links Metadata No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links Metadata No higher resolution available. ... A man-made lake in Keukenhof, Netherlands A lake (from Latin lacus) is a body of water or other liquid of considerable size contained on a body of land. ... For considerations of sea level change, in particular rise associated with possible global warming, see sea level rise. ... This article needs to be wikified. ... Tibet Autonomous Region, Qinghai Province and Sichuan Province of China lie on the Tibetan Plateau. ...

The lake is 5,694 km², or 2,278 square miles large (some sources say 4,635 km²) but shrinking, and 360 km (220 miles) in circumference. Despite its salinity, it has an abundance of fish, such as the edible huángyú (湟鱼). Its geographic coordinates are 37° N 100° E.

Qinghai Lake is sandwiched between Hainan and Haibei Tibetan Autonomous Prefectures in northeastern Qinghai. The lake is located at the crossroads of several bird migration routes across Asia. Many species use Qinghai as an intermediate stop during migration. As such, it is a focal point in global concerns of avian influenza (H5N1), as a major outbreak here could spread the virus across Europe and Asia, further increasing the chances of a pandemic. Minor outbreaks of H5N1 have already been identified at the lake. At its northeast end are the "Bird Islands" (Cormorant Island and Egg Island), which have been bird sanctuaries of the Qinghai Lake Natural Protection Zone since 1997. The lake often remains frozen for three months continuously in winter. location of Hainan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture within Qinghai Hainan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (simplified Chinese: 海南藏族自治州; pinyin: Hǎinán Zàngzú Zìzhìzhōu; Tibetan: མཚོ་ལྷོ་བོད་རིགས་རང་སྐྱོང་ཁུལ་; Wylie: Mtsho-lho Bod-rigs rang-skyong-khul) is an autonomous prefecture of Qinghai province in China. ... location of Haibei Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture within Qinghai Haibei Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (simplified Chinese: 海北藏族自治州; pinyin: Hǎiběi Zàngzú Zìzhìzhōu; Tibetan: མཚོ་བཡྣང་བོད་རིགས་རང་སྐྱོང་ཁུལ་; Wylie: Mtsho-byang Bod-rigs rang-skyong-khul) is an autonomous prefecture of Qinghai province in China. ... Prefecture, in the context of China, is used to refer to several unrelated political divisions in both ancient and modern China. ... Qinghai (Chinese: 青海; Hanyu Pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Ching-hai; Postal System Pinyin: Tsinghai; Tibetan: མཚོ་སྔོན་ mtsho-sngon; Mongolian: Köke Naγur; Manchu: Huhu Noor) is a province of the Peoples Republic of China, named after the enormous Qinghai Lake. ... Influenza A virus subtype H5N1, also known as A(H5N1) or simply H5N1, is a subtype of the Influenza A virus which can cause illness in humans and many other animal species. ...

Splitting

Prior to the 1960s, 108 freshwater rivers emptied into the lake. As of 2003, 85 % of the river mouths have dried up, including the lake's largest tributary, the Buha River. In between 1959 and 1982, there had been an annual water level drop of 10 centimetres, which was reversed at a rate of 10 cm/year between 1983 to 1989, but has continued to drop since. The Chinese Academy of Sciences reported in 1998 the lake was again threatened with loss of surface area due to livestock over-grazing, land reclamations and natural causes [1]. Lake surface area has decreased 11.7 percent in the period between 1908 and 2000 [2]. As a result of this, or possibly moving sand dune, higher lake floors were exposed, numerous water bodies were separated from the rest of the main lake around since the 20th century. In the 1960s, the 48.9 km² Gǎhǎi Lake (尕海) appeared in the northern part of the lake. During the 1980s, Shādǎo Lake (沙岛) split out in the northwest covers an area of 19.6 km², while the northeastern Hǎiyàn Lake (海晏) is 112.5 km² [3]. Another 96.7 km² daughter lake split off in 2004. In addition, the lake has now split into half a dozen more small lakes at the border. The surface water surface has shrunk by 312km² over the last three decades[4]. The Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese: 中国科学院; pinyin: Zhōngguó KÄ“xuéyuàn), formerly known as Academia Sinica (not to be confused with Taiwans Academia Sinica currently headquartered in Taipei which shares the same root), is the national academy for the natural sciences of the Peoples Republic of...

Taken in May 2006.

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青海湖